or maybe see if any places have any RX-A1040 or RX-A2040 or RX-A3040...for deep discounts

I mostly agree with the above list but I would leave Onkyo out; pretend you've never heard of them. I have two with issues, one with the oh-so-common failed HDMI board. Yamaha, on the other hand, has always been reliable for me and I currently use one in the kids' HT. Marantz has also been good to me for HT. If your funds permitted I'd recommend Anthem, but if it's tight I'd recommend a Yamaha (used even) and decent speakers, such as the ones you mentioned. In today's world of ever-new codecs good speakers will long outlive an HT receiver.

The only reason why I put Onkyo in the list is because he mentioned it. Onkyo would be my last choice.I don't know if its changed or not, but Onkyo used to run super hot and they weren't very reliable.I think Yamaha edges out Denon for reliability. Gibbys has some b Stock deals on right nowMake sure you understand the HDCP 2.2 compliant thing too.I am a Yamaha guy and would recommend a flagship model, but maybe more than you want to spendthat's why I said maybe a year old model RX-A3040

Author:

shoeshine [ Mon Mar 21, 2016 7:45 pm ]

Post subject:

Re: looking for insight on buying a home theatre AVR

Itsnotluck wrote:

If you do buy an Anthem you will need Windows to set up ARC..not Mac compatible...

oooh! didn't know this. very useful information to have. that may take it out of the running for me. thanks!

I'm curious if you can elaborate on "horrid?" That's kind of been my fear in all this when looking at Yamaha and Marantz and Denon gear. I'm not expecting the best sound, but I guess I'm used to listening to pure class a gear in my two channel setup.

Also Gibby's audio/video, out of St Catharines sells online. A couple of weeks ago they had brand new Marantz 7008 receivers on sale for $800. Not sure if the deal is still available. Really tough to beat for that price.

The Anthem deal was so good I bought it yesterday

The Gibby's deal sounded good too, but after submitting my order online, I got a call saying it was no longer available, yet they had all kinds of other "deals". None of the deals they sales guy presented were anywhere near as good as the SR-7008 for $800, so I think they were just running that to get orders and then "bump" the buyers to other models. I'm sure I'll be happier with the Anthem MRX-510 anyway.

Also Gibby's audio/video, out of St Catharines sells online. A couple of weeks ago they had brand new Marantz 7008 receivers on sale for $800. Not sure if the deal is still available. Really tough to beat for that price.

The Anthem deal was so good I bought it yesterday

The Gibby's deal sounded good too, but after submitting my order online, I got a call saying it was no longer available, yet they had all kinds of other "deals". None of the deals they sales guy presented were anywhere near as good as the SR-7008 for $800, so I think they were just running that to get orders and then "bump" the buyers to other models. I'm sure I'll be happier with the Anthem MRX-510 anyway.

good to know! still some good looking deals to be had there. and i would snatch up one of those Anthems if it weren't for the Windows compatibility necessity on the setup.....

I'm curious if you can elaborate on "horrid?" That's kind of been my fear in all this when looking at Yamaha and Marantz and Denon gear. I'm not expecting the best sound, but I guess I'm used to listening to pure class a gear in my two channel setup.

Same here. I have a high end resolving system and when you start to listen to 1000 bucks receiver - well it is ....."horrid", but to be fair, you get what you paid for.The sound is veiled, noise level is high, amplifier does not have any power, but you get a whole functional solution in a very small package.If the HDMI is not to important to you, I would go for a separate older generation pre/pro, Classe comes to mind, their pre/pro's quality of sound is at extremely high level. You can get them for about a 1000 or less. Also, used mid level multi channel amps could be had for about the same.

Author:

FoxFoxFox [ Tue Mar 22, 2016 5:20 am ]

Post subject:

Re: looking for insight on buying a home theatre AVR

shoeshine wrote:

Itsnotluck wrote:

If you do buy an Anthem you will need Windows to set up ARC..not Mac compatible...

oooh! didn't know this. very useful information to have. that may take it out of the running for me. thanks!

Wine

Author:

shoeshine [ Tue Mar 22, 2016 9:40 am ]

Post subject:

Re: looking for insight on buying a home theatre AVR

FoxFoxFox wrote:

shoeshine wrote:

Itsnotluck wrote:

If you do buy an Anthem you will need Windows to set up ARC..not Mac compatible...

oooh! didn't know this. very useful information to have. that may take it out of the running for me. thanks!

Wine

I know, I know....

If it were only me for home use I wouldn't mind. But this is for a setup at work, which will from time to time be reconfigured. Not often, maybe once a year but enough that in an all Mac office it would be annoying. And we have some other gear which requires a Windows machine for setup, and it's always a pain when we have to set that up.

Author:

Serenity_now [ Tue Mar 22, 2016 11:39 am ]

Post subject:

Re: looking for insight on buying a home theatre AVR

Google dolby Atmos and DTS:X.

The last gen AVRs are soon to be obsolete if they do not support HDMI 2.0a, HDCP 2.2 and immersive audio formats.

If 4k picture with wide color gamut and high dynamic range are important to you its time to start looking at current gen products. Denon and Marantz have first dibs on the rollout of new audio formats it seems. Ignore the folks who say an AVR cant do 2ch. Buy a quality brand like Anthem or Arcam for example and you will be good to go.

Author:

rnrgagne [ Tue Mar 22, 2016 11:40 am ]

Post subject:

Re: looking for insight on buying a home theatre AVR

My opinion having been around the block a few times, with an AVR, it's pick the features you want then look for whichever units meet those requirements within your budget, and then pick the one that has the best room correction software. Anthem's ARC is excellent, and so is Audyssey XT32 which is more readily available and its "Pro" version allows you to tailor a target curve to your own taste.

Author:

Serenity_now [ Tue Mar 22, 2016 1:34 pm ]

Post subject:

Re: looking for insight on buying a home theatre AVR

rnrgagne wrote:

My opinion having been around the block a few times, with an AVR, it's pick the features you want then look for whichever units meet those requirements within your budget, and then pick the one that has the best room correction software. Anthem's ARC is excellent, and so is Audyssey XT32 which is more readily available and its "Pro" version allows you to tailor a target curve to your own taste.

Good advice.

Author:

Burgerchow [ Tue Mar 22, 2016 1:49 pm ]

Post subject:

Re: looking for insight on buying a home theatre AVR

I used to buy the flagship home theatre receivers, 3-4 k each, but since the advent of HDMI, I`ve gone down to spending a max of $1000 on a home theater receiver cause they just don`t last. Stay away from Onkyo, ( went through 3 onkyo`s in the last 8 years. HDMI keeps crapping out ) Currently using last years Yamaha RXV 1077 . $999 at visions. So far so good. I won`t waste money on any high end receivers anymore cause HDMI boards just don`t last.

too many things going on in there.

Author:

Tangram [ Tue Mar 22, 2016 2:59 pm ]

Post subject:

Re: looking for insight on buying a home theatre AVR

I just retired an Onkyo that I ran problem-free for 17 years in my HT. Maybe the newer models aren't reliable but my old Integra was solid.

Just bought a Denon AVR-X4200W and it is fantastic. Yes, it has all the bells and whistles but it also has a phono stage. Running my new speakers and turntable through it for 2 channel listening and it is a very pleasing piece of kit. Same company but less pricey than Marantz. Very solid indeed.

Author:

rnrgagne [ Wed Mar 23, 2016 12:00 am ]

Post subject:

Re: looking for insight on buying a home theatre AVR

I just had the ARV 4100x, a year older model than yours, and I'd agree it is an exceptional sounding unit for the price. (I went to the Marantz 7705mkii & 8077 combo.) I've also owned quite a few flagships from a variety of manufactures. Mostly chasing room correction improvements. Onkyo has probably got a bad name by virtue of outselling others, but most manufacturers have had HDMI issues at one point or another. Since HDMI 1.3 came into play I don't believe you have to go up to the flagship level to get good sound, just for the latest features which is typical. The requirements to process the new high resolution formats, like DTS HD MA, was a game changer in price point performance in my opinion.

Author:

FoxFoxFox [ Wed Mar 23, 2016 2:16 am ]

Post subject:

Re: looking for insight on buying a home theatre AVR

Its dumb that they sell these with all the audio codecs + bells and whistles. I don't know why you'd bitstream DTS-HD MA and rely on the probably terrible internal DSP for channel trimming, bass management and down / upmixing. Makes no logical sense. Now all we need is a software Atmos decoder and we're golden. I'm trying to get my hands on the current Dolby Atmos encoder / decoder, not that it would be terribly useful but we can possibly capture the output of it.

Arcsoft TotalMediaTheatre has a handy allegedly reference spec DTS-HD MA decoder built in and even better the decoder's DLL is usable by a ton of different software. TrueHD has always been easily decodable.